All of Raphael’s Badassery in One Video [TMNT]

The news that we’ll be get­ting a new live-action TMNT film for Christ­mas in 2013 has totally put me in Obses­sive TMNT Fan­girl mode this week now that there’s like an actual release date to look for­ward to.

Though the film will be yet another reboot of the TMNT ori­gin story (sigh), I’m still stu­pid excited about it because OMFG NINJA TURTLES!

The pos­si­bil­i­ties of what the next TMNT film could  be got me think­ing yes­ter­day about how much I’d love to see a TMNT movie star­ring just Raphael , my all time favorite turtle.

Since that will prob­a­bly never hap­pen, I had to resort to the next best thing: cre­at­ing a badass Raphael fan video.

For the music, I set­tled on Hys­te­ria  by Muse. It ended up work­ing really well for both the lyrics and the mood I was going for.  And because I like to pre­tend I live in a world where the embar­rass­ment that is  Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles III  was never made, I only used clips from the first two Tur­tles  films.

It’s a trib­ute to all the things Raph does best: brood­ing, mouthing off and kick­ing ass. Hope you like it!

Live-Action Ninja Turtles Return for 2011

In geeky movie news this month that makes me feel like a fifth-grader again, TMNT co-creater Peter Laird con­firmed in Vari­ety rumors of another live-action  Tur­tles  movie planned for 2011.  The announce­ment comes on the heels of  TMNT’s 25th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion.  Other than mak­ing me feel old, I’m also damn excited.  Because in Hol­ly­wood, every­thing I loved grow­ing up in the 1980s is sud­denly cool again.  The new Tur­tles  film will be pro­duced by Scott Med­nick of Leg­endary Pic­tures, who is cur­rently pro­duc­ing the soon to be released Where The Wild Things Are,  another live-action fan­tasy film (which hap­pens to be based on yet another com­pletely awe­some thing from my child­hood).  And if these screen­shots are any indi­ca­tion of what’s in store for the next TMNT , then color me green with excitement.

After the orig­i­nal live-action movie, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles  films went from bad to worse, though 2007’s ani­mated  TMNT  was OK.  Then again, I’m of the opin­ion that the first Tur­tles movie is one of the great­est if under­rated comic book movies of all time—but I may be a lit­tle biased.  I was obsessed with all things Ninja Tur­tles as a kid.  Like  really  obsessed.  If it had a TMNT logo on it, I owned it.  I could quote the movies word for word (prob­a­bly still can).

My wish­list for the new live-action Tur­tles movie:

• Darker, grit­tier, edgier Tur­tles truer to the orig­i­nal Mirage comic books.
• Curse words.  Most TMNT fans have grown up, and so should the movies.
• Sex (if only to sat­isfy my mor­bid curiosity). 
• Real­stic CGI that doesn’t look like CGI.
• Back to basics origins/roots sto­ry­line. (Think Bat­man Begins .)
• April O’Neil, and any­one other than Paige Turco to play her.
• Blood, weapons, and graphic violence.
• Moar Raphael.*

Things I could live with­out:

• Shell-tastic tur­tle puns.
• Any char­ac­ter who exists solely in the Archie comics series.
• No Venus.
• Ran­dom kid-who-meets-the-Turtles char­ac­ter (a’la Keno in Turltes II, and later Yoshi in Tur­tles III).
• Any sto­ry­line involv­ing time travel.
• A Turtles-themed rap song.
• A PG rating.
• Cowabunga.

The sucky part about all this?  Wait­ing two years.

*Raphael is still the coolest tur­tle, and if you don’t agree with me, I’m not shar­ing my Ninja Tur­tles fruit snacks with you.